Waterville - Waterville police have arrested a Belgrade man they believe passed off around $6,000 worth of counterfeit bills at Central Maine businesses.

Police arrested 37-year-old Jeremy McCaslin Tuesday.

Waterville Police Chief Joe Massey tells us McCaslin was printing fake $50, $20 and $10 bills.

Massey said they started getting calls from several local businesses last week who reported receiving the counterfeit bills.

One business had surveillance video of a man later identified as McCaslin using the fake money.

Police searched his home and eventually caught up with McCaslin after pulling a car over he was riding in. Inside the car they found two printers and sheets of uncut money. "He was arrested and charged with aggravated forgery. He was also charged with possession of a scheduled drug," Massey said.

Massey said McCaslin admitted to printing and passing off the fake bills. "According to him, initially he was printing the money so he could buy drugs and he felt if he gave drug dealers the bad bills they probably would not call the police and say, 'I got a bad bill for selling drugs,'" Massey said. "Eventually that escalated and he started passing them off at businesses."

Massey says the United States Secret Service has been called in and they could take the case over and McCaslin would then face federal counterfeiting charges.

Massey said McCaslin's arrest may not be the end of this story. "At this time we're still investigating it. We believe there's more people that were involved in the scheme of printing the money, so there may be some arrests coming down the road," Massey said.

For now McCaslin remains in the Kennebec County Jail charged with aggravated forgery and drug possession.

If convicted on that charge he faces up to 10 years in prison.

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